


the intersection of function and desire

by broken_social_contract



Series: each choice, a universe [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Crack, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 18:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_social_contract/pseuds/broken_social_contract
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Ruby has a rock band and gets the girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the intersection of function and desire

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing.
> 
> \--
> 
> Also, this is an experiment in writing outside of my comfort zone. Bear with me while I get back into forming sentences after a year of bubbling scantrons.

_But one kiss levitates above all others. The_  
 _intersection of function and desire. The I do kiss._  
 _The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss._  
 _Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth,_  
 _like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones_  
\- Jeffrey McDaniel, 'The Archipelago of Kisses'

 

 

\--

 

 

The affirmation on her closet door mirror reads: _You are a badass._

                                    

It also reads: _So, stop being an idiot,_ in Emma’s barely legible handwriting.

                       

Except, she doesn’t really know how to _stop_.

 

\--

 

Case in point: The best friend she’s been kind of hopelessly in love with for eight years kissed her last night, and Ruby’s first instinct was to run.

                    

So she did.

 

\--

                                               

“You walked away?” Emma stares at her, wide-eyed and confused, before her face settles on that _‘You’re a moron’_ look that she’s been sending Ruby’s direction more and more as of late. She stretches her legs out on the loveseat in their living room, cereal bowl balanced on her lap in a wife beater and boxer shorts. “She kissed you and then you walked away?”

                                                

Ruby nods sleepily, dropping onto the futon across from Emma still clad in last night’s outfit she had passed out in.

 

Their living room is furnished by secondhand couches picked up from sidewalks across the city. The futon somehow still carries the faint smell of a New York City alley that Ruby and Emma have never scrubbed away entirely.

                             

“What the hell were you thinking?” Emma levels Ruby with a look that’s more pity than judge-y and Ruby withers under it, burying her face into the futon’s cushion.

                                                                                                                                                                                        

“I don’t know! And, I didn’t _walk away_ , exactly.” She keeps her face pressed into it because retelling the story out loud spurs an intense desire to set herself on fire. It’s better when she can pretend Emma’s stupid face isn’t judging her. “I said _thank you_ and then I said I had to leave because I needed to get up early for my shift at the diner today.”

                                                                

“Your shift that starts at 2pm?”

 

“She doesn’t _know_ that.”        

 

“She lives across the street from your Granny’s diner. I think she can see for herself just how _early_ your shift is.”

 

It knocks any lingering traces of sleep straight out her system, only to be replaced by a hot panic that fills her chest and squeezes.

                                                                                                       

“Fuck, what am I going to do?” Her voice is a little shrill and a lot desperate because Ruby is more parts idiot than badass some days.

                                                            

“Okay, well,” Emma takes a long deep breath and lets it out just as slowly.

                                            

“Okay,” Emma starts again, “Look, I mean, she kissed you that must mean she likes you right?”

                          

Ruby lifts her head up and says, slowly, so that Emma can understand, “She’s practically a 0 on the Kinsey scale. Maybe a 0.5 after last night.”

 

“You don’t actually know that.”

 

“ _Actually_ , I do.” (They had a conversation from five years ago that Ruby would like not to relive again, thank you very much)  “ _Anyway_ , do you think maybe she was experimenting? Like, she was curious and so she wanted to try it with me?”

                                                          

Emma’s laugh comes out like a bark. “Because you’re the sort of level headed person confused young women in New York want to experiment with?”

 

“Jerk.” Ruby sends a pillow spinning towards Emma’s head, hoping it will smack the blonde in the face, except Emma just snatches it in the air and smirks at Ruby.

                                                                                   

“Just go talk to her, Ruby.” Emma stuffs the cushion behind her and uses it as a backrest.

 

“I can’t just bring it up in conversation, _Emma_. How do you even start that conversation? _Hey Mary Margaret, do you want to talk about how I almost tripped over my own two feet trying to run out of that bar when you kissed me last night?_ ”

 

Emma snickers around a mouthful of cereal. “That’s a start.”

 

“I can’t do that!”

 

“Then you better hope she somehow blacked out last night.”

                                  

Ruby blanches. Because on the list of preferable scenarios that is actually sitting dead last.

                                                                                   

Ruby’s mouth babbles before her brain can catch up with it. “Do you think she might not remember? You can’t just forget the best kiss of your life, right? Because she wasn’t even _drunk_.”

                                          

The quiet second that follows stretches into an eternity Ruby wants to disappear to.

                                                     

Emma drops her cereal bowl back on her lap and uses both hands to scrub at her face. “Are you _freaking_ serious?”                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                           

Ruby can feel her face grow hot under the exasperated look Emma shoots her and the best response she can muster is to whine Emma’s name in hopes that maybe her roommate will leave it alone.

                                                                                                       

“It was five seconds long, Lucas. It looked like the shit kids do at a middle school dance.”

                                                                            

Ruby thinks back to Mary Margaret hooking two fingers into the belt loop of Ruby’s jean shorts, tugging Ruby impossibly close in the dim entry way of the bar. She thinks of Mary Margaret’s mouth slanting over hers, and Mary Margaret’s tongue flicking into Ruby’s mouth when Ruby sort of gasped in surprise, and how Mary Margaret tasted like cheap beer and cinnamon lip gloss.

                                   

“I didn’t kiss girls like that in middle school.”

                                             

“You didn’t kiss girls like that five years ago, either.”

 

Her roommate is a bitch from hell.

 

“You’re missing the point.” Ruby sniffs because the point is her preferred scenario goes like this: _Mary Margaret and Ruby mutually acknowledge the kiss happened without also acknowledging Ruby’s awkward response (in a way that does not require actual adult conversation), and continue with theirs lives like it never actually happened._

Is it too much for Emma to let her believe in this possibility?

                                                                                   

“Maybe,” Emma says in a superior sort of voice, like she’s sharing the secrets of the universe with Ruby, “we should stick with romancing the groupies.”

                                                                      

Ruby rolls onto her back, forearm across her face to block the sunlight that cuts through the blinds. “I think we’ve already slept with all of them. Some of them twice.”

 

\--

 

On a road trip four years ago, Emma and Ruby had come up with the idea of forming a band – less as a possible career and more as a hobby to keep them out of trouble, and by their next pit stop, somewhere in the middle of Kentucky, the band was born and christened ‘The Wolfes.’

                                                   

(The name is Ruby’s idea. A sort of nod to Tom Wolfe, whose essays kind of changed Ruby’s life in the two years she attempted college, and the reason she dragged Emma on a road trip across the country in the first place)

                                                                               

The Wolfes have been generating buzz in the last year – _a fresh new voice in punk_ , they’ve been called --, and Ruby has reached that point where doesn’t mind (much) that Brooklyn hipsters make up most of their audience.

                                 

It’s not their _intended_ target audience, but the hipsters pack the bars in Park Slope and DUMBO and they sing along to the catchy hooks that Ruby writes like the words mean just as much to them as they do her.

                                   

“What did you do to Mary Margaret?” David asks during practice the following night.

 

Their practice space is the basement of the house Ruby and Emma rent together in Queens – the borough of affordable rent and safe enough neighborhoods.

                                                                        

“Nothing. I haven’t seen her since that show on Wednesday.”

                               

David’s face glows a soft purple under the stage lights Emma’s been tinkering with for their summer set list. The cords in his hands are full of knots and he keeps pulling at the black wires to disentangle the mess.

                                                                        

“It didn’t look like ‘ _nothing’_ to me.”

 

Ruby stops tuning her guitar to watch him carefully, hand curling tight around the neck of the instrument. Her heart picks its rhythm up. “Alright, what did it look like then if you know so much?”

                                                                      

“I would’ve classified it as pissed.”

                                            

“Oh yeah? “ Ruby feigns ignorance. She makes a show of tuning her guitar, eyes focused on the tuning keys she twists around. “About what?”

                                              

“Don’t know. She didn’t say.”

                                          

“So, how do you know she’s mad at _me_ then, genius?”

                                            

“For starters, she interrupted my dinner date with Kathryn last night and to tell us how she’s going to kill you and to not ask questions.” David pauses as he straightens out the last kink in the wires.  “And, she wanted tips on how to evade the law.”

                                                

Jesus Christ.

                                                                               

“Did you _help_ her?” She squeaks and it sounds so undignified. _What is happening to her?_ “You can’t aide in an assault, David. Don’t they teach you that at your police academy?”         

                                        

David just laughs and looks up from his task to wink at her. “What did you do?”

                                                                                           

Ruby wants to tell him to mind his own business, but Graham beats her to a response.

                                 

“She ducked out after Mary Margaret kissed her the other night,” Graham supplies helpfully, as he comes down the stairs into the basement.

 

“Performance anxiety gets the best of us so don’t let it get you down,” he adds smiling at her. She can hear the trace of pity in his voice.

                                                                                        

Ruby sputters and coughs, choking on the air making its way into her lungs. “It wasn’t _performance anxiety_.”

 

“She what? And then you what?” David asks. His eyes go impossibly wide and his mouth hangs open a little.

 

Ruby flushes. “She kissed me. And, I sort of freaked out and took off. It’s nothing, okay? I mean, she was experimenting, and it’ll blow over the next time I see her.”

                                     

She clears her throat and attempts to look authoritatively around the group. “Could we get to practice now? Battle of the Bands is in two weeks.”

 

The expression her bandmates shoot her way before they finally listen to instructions makes Ruby feel like maybe she missed an important memo.

                               

\--

                     

Ruby spent high school and the years after assuming that Mary Margaret and David were the real deal – high school sweethearts destined for that rare and magical happily ever after.

                                     

Ruby was going to be the cool godmother to their 2.5 kids. And, when Emma had entered their lives sophomore year of college, Ruby assumed she would be the _sane_ aunt to those 2.5 kids.

                                                        

Also, David was the kind of great guy that Mary Margaret deserved, which made it easy to bottle everything up – that warmth in her chest like she’d swallowed a super nova whenever Mary Margaret smiled at her a certain way or the pop rocks in her stomach would go off when Mary Margaret would curl into Ruby during sleepovers.

 

(Okay, and also, if Ruby’s being honest, it wasn’t until Emma had kind of mentioned Ruby’s very obvious, very closeted gayness did she even really notice that her feelings were anything but platonic.)

                            

Then, Mary Margaret and David split up and Ruby lost her control over it, like the break-up had uncorked her feelings that had built and built and built over the years. A pressure cooker of emotions that Ruby had underestimated.

                                    

After the break up, everyone just seemed to _know_ , like Ruby was walking around with her heart on broadcast.

 

“I know we did the right thing,” David had said one night while they sat on the floor of Ruby’s apartment poring over records and smoking a blunt, “Because I _love_ her but we’re not really _in love_ anymore, you know?”

                                       

Ruby nodded absently, too busy reading the liner notes on Dillinger Four’s _Midwestern Songs of the Americas._

                                                                               

“But, I don’t know how to get over the relationship or just _her_ in general, and it’s already been six months.” David passed the joint to Ruby as he moved to lie on the floor beside the record player.

                    

He nudged at her leg with his foot and asked, voice going low and serious, “How’d you do it?”

                                         

“Do what?” Ruby blew a series of _‘O’_ s towards the ceiling.

 

David dragged a finger through one that floated above him. “Get over her.”

 

“David --“ She rose quickly to her elbows and shot him a look, eyes flashing darkly.

                                       

“-- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. “ He stretched his hands out in front of him as if to stop the mood from shifting. “It’s just you were here first, and I was just--”

                                                                 

She cut him off with a laugh, a little high, a little buzzed. “I’m still here, too.”

                                               

\--

                                                                   

“Can we talk?” Ruby yells into the intercom.

                                                                        

Mary Margaret’s voice cuts through the white static. “What about?”

 

“You know what.”                       

 

The buzzer sounds and Ruby bounds up the stairs two at a time to Mary Margaret’s third floor studio apartment. The wood groans and shift with every other step Ruby makes.

 

“Hey,” Ruby grins when the door swings open, but Mary Margaret steps into the doorway, blocking Ruby’s path in. Her grin dims down several watts, and she fidgets, feeling much too exposed in the narrow hallway.

 

“You want to talk, so let’s talk.”

 

“Right.” Ruby chews on her bottom lip and tries to look as contrite as possible. “David mentioned yesterday how you’re sort of pissed at me so I just wanted to say I’m sorry. In person. For, um, you know about the other night. You know when we, _you know_.” Ruby gestures vaguely at the air around them.

                                         

Mary Margaret’s expression is a hybrid of irritation and amusement. “When I kissed you.”          

                                      

Ruby feels her stomach clench at the memory. “Yes, that. I’m sorry I left so quickly. I mean, I should’ve stayed and we should’ve talked about it, right? And do you -- do you wanna talk about it now? Because the first time I kissed another girl –“

                                           

“When Emma kissed you.”

                                              

Ruby makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat because they do not talk about that, _ever_ , before plodding through the rest of her prepared speech. “Right, anyway, I mean that was pretty hard to wrap my head around at the time.”

                               

“You’re not the first girl I’ve kissed, Ruby! It wasn’t an experiment.”

                   

Oh.

 

“Oh.”                                      

                            

“Yes, _oh_.”

                        

“So, you kissed me?” Ruby frowns. “I don’t get it.”

                                           

Mary Margaret growls (actually _growls_ , and Ruby takes a step back because Mary Margaret looks kind of murderous now and less and less amused), “Because I like _you_.”

                                                        

Oh.

                                                                     

Ruby’s mouth moves before she can put together a coherent through. “You shouldn’t.”

                                                   

She flinches as the door swings shut with a _bang_ that rattles the building.

                                                                                  

\--

                                                                            

Here’s the thing: Ruby has never wanted to _act_ on her feelings for Mary Margaret.

 

She has her reasons. The list starts with the five metal pins scattered throughout her body that holds some of her bones together. The scar down her spine that looks like someone tried to cut her in half is a close second.

 

Also, Mary Margaret had told her once she could never picture herself with a woman. So.

                        

\--

 

She drinks until all that’s left are her baser instincts and then Ruby acts on those.

 

She ends up in David’s apartment, cross-legged on his leather couch scrolling through profiles on OKCupid while David sprawls on the floor trying to balance a bottle of Heineken on his chest.

 

“Where’s Kathryn?” Ruby asks distractedly. She bookmarks a profile for ‘Sean,’ a 27 year old teacher from Queens who likes dogs and hiking and sort of looks like David. “She’d be good at this.”

                                                                                       

“She’s working late and probably staying at her own place tonight.” The “ _especially_ _since you’re here and clearly losing your mind”_ goes unsaid.

                                                              

“You never told me you had a death wish,” David adds.

                                                                                                                    

Ruby waves him off. “Did you know she _likes_ me, now? She likes me in a she actually wants to _date_ me sort of way.” She wonders if maybe she needs to examine profiles of women, too.

                                                                 

“There were signs.” David angles his head up slightly to drink a sip without the liquid sloshing back up his nose. “But, I thought you’d be excited. Happy at least.”

                                     

“I don’t date you know this.”

                                                      

She hears him shift around and looks up to catch him studying her closely. “You’ve been in love with her since _forever_ , Ruby. What gives?”

                          

“Not _forever_ ,” Ruby corrects him. She bookmarks ‘Thomas,’ a 25 year old accountant who also likes Harry Potter and Battlestar Gallactica.

 

It’s not like Mary Margaret is her first love.

 

She hears the moment it comes together for David. He sucks in a lungful of air and says her name on the exhale. It’s soft and delicate, like a zoo keeper trying to soothe an animal gone wild.

 

“Don’t.”

 

The entire length of her scar stings, the pain shooting straight into her spine.

 

“Peter was—“

 

“ _Don’t._ ”

 

\--

 

Peter was the first person Ruby fell in love with. He was the boy next door with that charming smile, and dark brown eyes, and floppy hair that kept falling in his face. Ruby fell in the habit of brushing it away whenever they were curled up on her couch watching TV.

 

He was David's best friend, too. They had their own band back then. Pete had thought her how to _really_ play the guitar. How to slide your fingers down the frets quickly. The tricks she uses now, she learned from him.

 

The relationship lasted all of five months, one week, four days before Ruby lost control of her 1975 Camaro on the Long Island Expressway and they spun and spun and spun before landing wrapped around a utility pole.

 

Pete died on impact. Everyone assured her that it had been quick.

 

Painless.

 

That’s the word they kept using: _painless._

 

\--                          

                                               

Avoiding Mary Margaret lasts just a little over 24 hours because she makes it back from a closing shift at the diner the following night to find their Keurig broken down to pieces on the dining room table and Emma nowhere in sight.

                                                          

Her actions don’t register until she hears Mary Margaret breathe out a _‘Hi_!’ against her ear. Her voice sounds warm and a little sleepy. Heat pools in her stomach at the thought of Mary Margaret getting ready for bed.

                                         

“Emma took apart out coffee maker,” Ruby whines into the phone. “Like, actually took it apart. There are Keurig parts all over the table.”

                                      

Mary Margaret snorts. “Are you okay?”

 

Ruby picks up one of the larger pieces of the machine. “I think I’ll survive.” She says, dramatically. “It’s like she does it to spite me. Couldn’t she have killed a less beloved appliance?”

 

“But where would the fun be in that?”

 

“You’re right,” Ruby mocks, “how inconsiderate of me. Part of Emma taking out her anger on my favorite coffee maker is getting to piss me off in the process. All part of the therapeutic process for that one.”

 

Ruby spots Emma’s electronic drum kit in the middle of the living room, a number of her favorite drumsticks scattered on the ground around it. “No one warned me this was one of their _on-again_ weeks.”

                                

Mary Margaret yawns. Ruby hears the sheets rustle in the background when she shifts. “How can you tell this is about Regina? And, where’s Emma?”

 

“She’s bartending tonight. And, her drum kit is in the living room with a half-empty bottle of Johnny.” Ruby flops on the loveseat and frowns at the fabric wedged between the couch cushions. “I think I spy Regina’s thong on _my_ couch.” Her voice rises in pitch.

 

Mary Margaret laughs, and Ruby suddenly realizes she’s missed that sound. She presses the phone closer to her ear.

 

“They’re like Sid and Nancy without the drugs. And, probably more sex.”

 

It’s Ruby’s turn to laugh out loud. “Did you just reference the Sex Pistols?”

 

Mary Margaret protests. “I listen when you guys talk about music! Give me some credit here.”

 

Ruby laughs harder because she and David have spent their lives trying to provide Mary Margaret with a musical education to no avail. Ruby knows her best friend probably couldn’t even name a Sex Pistols song or recognize one if she heard it on the radio.

 

But, of course, Mary Margaret would remember a trashy anecdote about a band member.

                                                 

“I miss you,” Ruby blurts out and then, cringes when the line goes deadly quiet.

 

“You still there?” Ruby whispers.

 

“Yeah.” Mary Margaret’s voice comes out tight and shaky. “I’m only a little mad at you now. I bet the next time you come over I’d let you in and not slam a door in your face. So maybe we can hang out soon.”

 

Ruby risks a small laugh and says, “Yeah?” quietly because she doesn’t have the first clue on how to have this conversation.

 

Whatever _this_ conversation even is.

 

“It hurt being rejected” Mary Margaret continues. Her voice grows firmer, surer as she keeps going. “Especially by you. It sucked and I was just mad at you, and I was mad at _me_ too, because I expected it to pan out differently than how it did.” There’s a beat, and then: “I think I went in with this really dumb idea that maybe you liked me back so I was more hurt than I should’ve been, but still, I shouldn’t have lashed out like I did. And, I’m sorry.”

 

Ruby freezes. “I do, you know – I, uh, like you. I just –“ She stops midsentence, not sure how to continue.

 

 

“Oh.” Mary Margaret says. It sounds more like an exhale than a word.

 

Then, there’s rustling again on Mary Margaret’s side of the line before she whispers, “Hey, I’m not going anywhere, Ruby. No matter what happens. I may have been seventeen when I promised you that but I meant it and I still do.”

                                          

Ruby’s throat constricts around this lump that lodges itself in there. She doesn’t trust herself to talk without crying so she just nods, which she realizes a second later Mary Margaret can’t actually _see_ over the phone.

 

“I should go to bed. I need to wake up early to finish grading some tests. Good night.”

 

“Night,” Ruby manages weakly before jabbing the end button on the call and dropping the cell phone on her lap.

 

She presses the heel of her palms to her eyes and feels how wet they are.

 

\--

 

Maybe if it was just Pete it would be easier.

 

But, Pete’s just a portion of it.

 

Her Dad died when she was six. There was an accident at the construction site he worked at. A crane malfunction. Ruby doesn’t remember much of it. Just the hole he’d left in the family.

 

She remembers her Mom, though, who died when she was seventeen. Ovarian cancer. Ruby spent two months watching her waste away in the hospital. Movies could never come close to the reality of cancer, the way your own body fights you to the death, eats away at every part of you. She’d been skin and bones and unrecognizable at the end.

 

Ruby's tired of important people in her life dropping off the face of the earth, so she doesn’t give them important titles anymore.

 

No one’s been her girlfriend or boyfriend since Pete.

 

\--

 

Mary Margaret stops by the diner a couple of days later while Ruby’s working the closing shift, a stack of papers tucked under her arm.

 

“The owner said I could score a free dinner if I came by tonight,” Mary Margaret grins mischievously, taking a seat in Ruby’s section of the restaurant.

                                                                   

Ruby nods and tries to look unaffected while her traitorous heart does somersaults in her chest. “The usual, then?”

 

She spies her Granny watching them from behind the register and fights the urge to scowl. Granny just waves at both of them and Mary Margaret waves back dutifully.

 

“Yes, please.”

 

Ruby lingers for a second before changing her mind and shuffling away, “I’ll be back with some coffee.”

 

“And I’ll be here when you get back.”

 

Ruby nods, again, mouth going dry. Mary Margaret looks amused.

 

Ruby sort of hates everyone, right now.

 

“You _invited_ her?” Ruby hisses at her grandmother when she approaches the counter.

 

“She’s looking thin these days,” Granny frowns, “I thought I should feed her.”

 

“Granny, I told you we’re kind of not on good terms right now!” Ruby almost stomps her foot petulantly.

 

“Didn’t look like it from here, girlie. Now put her order in and fill up the napkin holders, or we’re gonna be here all night.”

 

“Everyone’s just so fucking observant these days,” Ruby grumbles under her breath, but does as she’s told.

 

Her Granny’s got that effect on her. Ruby just does as she’s told, even if she grumbles about it the entire way. Ruby’s pretty sure Granny’s going to outlive her too, for the sole purpose of ordering Ruby around for rest of her life.

 

Ezra, the line cook on duty tonight, smiles sympathetically from behind the grill when she hands him the order.

 

Mary Margaret stays until closing and then, Granny orders Ruby to walk her home, as if crossing the street in Kew Gardens, Queens was a dangerous activity.

 

“Who’s gonna walk _me_ back here, then?” Ruby grouses, but Granny just smiles sweetly back her.

 

“I’m sure you can handle yourself.”

 

Ruby scowls and shoves the door open with her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she orders more snippily than she really means.

 

“She lost a bet to Emma,” Mary Margaret fills her in when the door closes behind them.

 

“What?”

 

There aren’t too many cars on the road, anymore. They could cross here in the middle of the street and cut their walk by a couple of minutes, at least.

 

Ruby turns and heads towards the crosswalk, instead. She catches the signs of a grin forming on Mary Margaret’s face and finds herself smiling, too.

 

“They had a running pool on who would make the first move. Granny lost.”

 

The information sinks in, and Ruby gets a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Oh god, did Emma kiss you and induce gay panic, too? Is that what spurred this on?” She scrubs a hand over her face and plots various ways to kill her roommate.

 

Mary Margaret laughs, “I asked her to set me up with one of her friends. She set me up with some librarian from Jersey.”

 

“I thought you said –“

 

“I was 20 when we had that conversation,” Mary Margaret reminds her kindly, “You had just come out. I was dating David, but you were always _confusing_ me. What was I supposed to say when you ask me if I ever thought of being with a woman?”

 

Under the streetlight, Ruby notes that Mary Margaret’s smile is a little more forced than she had first imagined.

 

Ruby holds her hands up. “You don’t have to explain. People change.”

 

They cross the street when the ‘Walk’ sign flashes.

                                      

“I wanted something fun and different," Mary Margaret continues quietly, "We just went for coffee a couple of times and didn’t really click. Anyway, your Granny’s trying to win the money back, all or nothing.”

 

“What’s the bet?”         

 

“She won’t say. She did say she would split it with me, if she won.” Mary Margaret winks at her as she climbs the first step up her apartment complex.

                                                                                       

Ruby grabs her wrist and keeps Mary Margaret in place before she loses her nerve, “I don’t—“

                                                                                     

“Can you not decide anything right this instant?” Mary Margaret cuts her off. “Can you think about it some more?”

                                   

The way Mary Margaret says it, the way the her eyes go wide and round and a little desperate, causes Ruby’s breath to catch as she tries to breathe in.

 

“Yeah. Okay,” she responds, faintly.

                                                     

When Mary Margaret thanks her for the walk home with a kiss on the cheek, Ruby’s stupid, traitorous heart does more than just somersaults.

 

It practically explodes out of her chest from how warm and full it feels, like Ruby’s got a whole galaxy inside her waiting to come out.

 

\--

 

In hindsight, she can pinpoint the exact day she falls for Mary Margaret.

                         

She snapped the week after her mother’s funeral and locked herself in her room for hours, refusing to come out even when Granny threatened to shoot the door down with her shotgun.

                            

She broke everything she could get her hands on. Her acoustic guitar. Picture frames. Her mirror. Anything that could be thrown, she threw.

 

Mary Margaret snuck in through the fire escape that led to her room and just stood in the middle of the chaos, refusing to run away from all of it – from Ruby, from Ruby’s grief, from Ruby’s childish breakdown. Ruby had yelled and told her to get out and how she didn’t want to be friends anymore because everyone left.

 

Everyone just fucking _left_.

 

Except, Mary Margaret had promised Ruby that she wouldn’t.

 

“You can go before I do, I’ll hang on and keep away from any lights if I know you’re still around,” she grinned, like it was an easy promise to make.

 

Like it was the easiest promise she would ever make.

                                       

Ruby doesn’t remember falling asleep that day, but she remembers waking up in the middle of the night to Mary Margaret curled against her side with a peanut butter sandwich, a bag of chips and a glass of water on her bedside table.

 

She remembers the burst of affection for her best friend in the haze of all that grief. The knowledge that no one will take care of her half as well as Mary Margaret. Remembers thinking she will never feel as safe with anyone else, or even as loved.

                                                                               

She wonders if it’s awful that she fell for Mary Margaret out of a selfish need to be loved and cared for, but she thinks maybe that’s how most of these stories begin, really: that selfish human need for that one person to keep you safe and loved and happy.

 

\--

 

She wonders if Mary Margaret feels safe and loved and happy whenever she’s around Ruby.

 

And it’s on the bus back to Forest Hills that Ruby thinks: _oh._

 

And then her heart, that stupid, impulsive organ that is supposed to keep her alive, makes a rash decision that Ruby thinks might kill her one day, if she isn’t careful.

 

\--

 

She changes their set list for Battle of the Bands.

                             

It’s actually kind of brilliant, really.

 

“You cannot play this tomorrow. We’ll be laughed off that stage!” Emma yelps when Ruby hands them music sheets at the next practice. “And, you can’t change the set list the day before.”

 

Ruby shoots back. “You owe me, so you don’t get a say in this, actually.”

                                     

“I already bought you a new Keurig. I’m sorry you can’t handle the fact that true love can get a little messy sometimes.”

 

Graham snorts at that statement. He ducks as one of Emma’s spare drumstick flies towards his head. It grazes by his ear but mostly misses him, colliding with the basement’s cement wall instead before clattering to the ground.

 

“You set Mary Margaret up on a date with one of your bimbo friends.”

 

“Belle is not a bimbo.” Emma defends, though she does have the decency to look somewhat apologetic.            

 

“Well, I’m in.” David grins, eyes darting between Ruby and the music sheet. “Who knew you could be romantic?”

 

“I’m in too, especially since Ruby doesn’t try to kill me during practice.”

 

Everyone looks at Emma expectantly. She sighs as she rolls up her sleeves. “Let’s just get this shit over with, then.”

 

As Emma counts them in to the song, though, she catches Ruby’s eye and winks, and the wide grin that surfaces on Emma’s face is contagious enough that Ruby finds herself grinning back, too.

 

Her roommate is _such_ an asshole.

                                                                                                                             

\--

 

“We’re going to slow things a bit with this next one. This is for uh,” Ruby freezes, squinting into the massive crowd in the futile hope of catching a glimpse of Mary Margaret, “well, you know who you are.”

                      

Ruby’s never been this nervous on a stage before. Not since that first show when she threw up before and after the set. She’d almost thrown up _during_ the set that day, too. Her hands are a little shaky and when she hears Emma’s count, her knees kind of buckle.

 

“Give me love like her,” she starts, a little off-key and shaky. Her eyes slide shut to try and forget the suddenly quiet crowd in front of her. Her mind focuses on the feel of the fingerboard, the frets, and the position markers.

 

“Cause lately I've been waking up alone, paint splattered teardrops on my shirt, told you I'd let them go.”

 

Her voice finds its footing in the next few lines, and dips into the lower, gravelly registers for the song.

 

And, the crowd finds its voice, too, they sing along with her.

                                                          

Ruby files away the feeling that sort floods her system: like flying, or maybe falling through the sky, through every universe, past every known and unknown star in the systems. It’s like sliding into the life she’s been dreaming of, opening up her eyes to this crowd, standing on a stage with a guitar in hand.

 

Her girl’s out there, too, waiting for her.

 

 _The_ girl.

                                                                                                                                           

\--

 

Mary Margaret catches her backstage. Ruby’s heart speeds up at the sight of her, thundering in double-time, pulse point jumping in the same staccato rhythm there on her neck.

 

“If I kiss you now, are you going to run away?”

 

Mary Margaret’s eyes are dark with a promise as she hover in front of Ruby, mouth an inch away.

                                         

Ruby shakes her, no.

 

And, she doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Song used: "Give Me Love" by Ed Sheeran


End file.
